Out of the Black

This heavy-handed melodrama of two brothers coming to grips with family scandal in a Pennsylvania mining town is too contrived for it's own good, relying too heavily on coincidence and sensationalism to be believable. But while the scenario is amateurish, the direction and performances here are very nicely executed and warrant a watch. A little less glamour would have gone a long way in making this one more lifelike. As it is, a glorified TV movie.

Obviously, I watched a different movie than Mr. Parker. I thought the movie was very well done for a small independent film. The story was a little choppy in the beginning but picked up and was very entertaining. The soundtrack was wonderful. The acting was top-notch with Tyler Christopher as the lead, along with the other cast members. It's a definite movie well worth watching.

This was a powerful, riveting drama set in the mines of Pennsylvania that invites comparison to "East of Eden" as a powerful coming of age film. Excellent performances and gorgeous location cinematography combine to make this an exceptional viewing experience.

I saw this film in Los Angeles and found it to be a brilliant character driven story, that was well acted and passionate. I went with a friend and had very few expectations. I had seen Tyler Christopher on General Hospital and the Pretender but had no idea he was doing movies. His character "Cole" was very reminiscent of a young Marlon Brando in 'Streetcar'- interior and smoldering - Wow! Anyway, Jeffrey Lyons had given the film an excellent review so we decided to check it out. I'm always a little skeptical of indie films but this one I will say, was excellant. Dee Wallace played a great antagonist, and Sally Kirkland's character, who was a mute, was fantastic. Unlike the big studio films, this is a movie with depth and heart. It was both involving and suspenseful without the use of special effects. The only negative was maybe the ending, which held out on the relationships and there resolutions, but I guess you can use your imagination. I gave this film an eight and a half out of ten.

The reason a friend and I watched this is because we are big fans of Tyler Christopher as Nikolas Cassidine on "General Hospital." It's not too bad of a film, runs just like a TV-movie and even has some nice outdoors scenes.

What was really unintentionally funny about this film was that Tyler seemed very out of place, not being "hick enough" for his role. It was kind of like watching Nikolas Cassidine on a farm. Even funnier was spotting the few times in the film he tried to do a "hick" accent, even spicing up things a bit by throwing in a "y'all" here and there. Once he even said it with the accent. The funniest was probably when he was trying to get the New York girl to jump in the water with him, when he slipped into the accent and stated that "y'all city folk" or something don't do things like that!

The brothers going after the same girl was kinda cool, as was Tyler's obvious attitude throughout the film. One surprise was Sally Struthers, looking a tad slimmer these days, in a completely embarrassing minor role (cameo?) that isn't going to help her career any.

There's even some cool old cars around, and a real old-school southern-type black man to help out. The extras are actually decent, with everyone kissing up to Tyler in the "behind the scenes" section. The narration on the trailer is absolutely hilarious. Tyler's line of "leave the killing to the killers" may have been big if it was in a bigger movie. And if he wasn't just killing a mere cow when he was saying it! (For the record, his character and his brother were in the meat business.) To watch this, it definitely helps that you are a Tyler fan thanks to his work on GH. If you are, it's actually a halfway decent film, could have been a lot worse!